December is a time where many projects are winding down while others are awaiting the first of the year to roll around. Holiday parties, shopping and families all make this once of the busiest times of the year. So, briefly, here are some of the things going on at the Web Marketing Association.

IAC Awards underway

Now it is sixth year, the IAC Awards are the first and only industry-based advertising award competition dedicated exclusively to online advertising. This is a great opportunity to show clients and senior management the high quality of your online advertising – not only banner ads, all forms of online advertising including newsletters, email, interactive applications and microsites and landing pages.

Entering the IAC Awards is easy. Simply go to the new IAC Awards website at www.iacaward.org and select “Submit an Entry”. If you have a nominator account from last year, you can simply log in. If you did not create a free nominator account, providing some basic contact information is all you need to do. Once in, you can start submitting your entries.

The deadline for entering this award program is January 31, 2008.

If you are a senior Internet advertising professional and would like to be considered as a judge for the 2008 IAC Awards, please complete the judges nomination form.

WebAward Survey

At the end of each year we send out surveys to both the participants and judges of the WebAward program. These surveys are very valuable to us and help us to improve the award program each year. When you receive an email asking for your help, please take a few minutes and provide some feedback on what we are doing right and what can be improved.

The judges survey as already been sent and the participant survey will go out in a few days.

Website Magazine

The Web Marketing Association WebAwards was recognized as a top website award program in the most recent issue of Website Magazine.

If you’re not already getting Website Magazine, you should be. It's free within the U.S. and available for a small fee outside the U.S.(covers the extra shipping). Great in-depth articles that are helpful and well written. I read every issue and think they are doing a great job. If you don't yet receive it, click here to receive the next issue.

MarketingSherpa Teleseminar

Please join the Web Marketing Association and MarketingSherpa for a practical and tip-filled teleseminar on Landing Page Design January 15, 2008 at 2:00 EST. Based on the findings of MarketingSherpa's newest edition of the Landing Page Handbook, you'll get useful information on how to design your landing pages to increase your conversion rates by as much as 55%. Watch for full details in an email later this week.

Holiday Wishes

Finally, I wanted to thank everyone who helped the Web Marketing Association this year. Our sponsors, judges, participants and volunteers all deserve our deep felt gratitude for helping to make our award programs a standard for Internet development each year.

I wish everyone a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year. Here’s hoping that one day we truly will have peace on earth and good will towards all men.

WebAward Competition
– The 2007
WebAward winners have been announced and are posted on the
WebAward.org website. Thanks to everyone who participated and if you
missed it this year, you need to wait until next April.

Spacious by design:Using uses online games to generate
excitement for its SpringHill Suites brand.

The Grocery Game
– How Albertsons used their Checkout
Exploding Banner to win an Outstanding Rich Media Online Ad from the
IAC Awards

Conferences and
tradeshows are a great way to network with other industry
professionals and keep up-to-date with the Internet. Here is
additional information on the conferences you will find the Web
Marketing Association supporting this Fall.

Content Week
2008

The
Westgate Hotel, San Diego, CA

Jan 28-Feb 1,
2008.

IQPC’s
Content Week 2008 is your gateway to effective
Content Management strategy. This unique event offers creative
solutions and best practices in all areas of Content Management.
Ensuring usability, flexibility, localization and globalization of
content to meet bottom line business objectives is today the
ultimate priority.

Make More Money
with Pay Per Click (PPC). Find out how the experts run campaigns on
Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter (MSN),
and all the smaller Pay Per Click Engines! PPC Summits are designed
as How To workshops that teach you how to better manage your PPC
campaigns. The focus is solidly on advertiser education: how to
spend less money, more effectively, with better results.

Use code WMA10 and
receive a 10% off the Pay-Per-Click workshops. Also coming to
Boston, Vancouver, London, San Francisco and LA. For more info go
to www.ppcsummit.com.

This is the ONLY “epharma”
conference to focus entirely on Search Engine Marketing. The
audience is comprised entirely of those who are there solely to
learn about SEM for Pharma. This Conference will be different from
last year’s event in that it will provide more solid case studies
that describe in detail exactly how Pharma is adapting this
technology into its marketing plans. The conference will focus more
on practical tools that can be implemented fairly quickly and will
be less heavy on the introductory information.
Click Here for more Information